As a hardware news and review writer, I find that it can be pretty difficult to keep up with everything happening in the industry. It could be that, or it could be the full time job with a family that crunches the schedule a bit. But that’s the life of a freelancer and I wouldn’t have it any other way! Still, there’s some good news worthy releases I’ve received that I’ve been dying to get out to you, but haven’t had the time until now. Let’s fill the loop on some interesting products from SENNHEISER, TAI-HAO and AQUA COMPUTER. I hate to admit it but I was deleting PRs from SENNHEISER because I didn’t realize they were different from the other spam emails I get. Let’s just say spam filters aren’t perfect and I check all of my promotional emails a bit closer now. Still, consistency is not an issue for them and I began noticing what I thought were some pretty impressive products. SENNHEISER deals in gaming headsets, but also has a host of other audio products to check out. For this update, I particularly want to point out the GSP 350 gaming headset with Dolby 7.1 Surround. While I can’t verify the audio quality, the design looks excellent and some user reviews I looked at indicate that the company generally has pretty good sound. Even then, there were a couple of features that looked interesting. One design detail I really like is the fact that the mic will automatically mute when you raise the boom, negating t...

I’m not a CS:GO player, but I know an awesome paint job when I see one. NZXT is releasing a limited number of custom painted H440 cases and if you love this artwork, you a better hurry. There’s only supposed to be 1,337 units made, but at $200 per case, I’m sure only the biggest fans will be clamoring to reserve the design. I have to say though, it looks like a great design and I hope we see more of this with other game titles as time goes by. Check below for the image gallery and the rest of the press release. Los Angeles, CA - Los Angeles, CA – November 1, 2016 – NZXT today announces the H440 Hyper Beast Limited Edition, a very exclusive version of its classic H440. Developed in collaboration with Brock Hofer, graphic artist behind Hyper Beast, this case is focused at CS:GO fans. It features the fierce creature found on the CS:GO M4A1-S Hyper Beast weapon skin.This rare H440 is produced in a one-time production of 1,337 units, each with a uniquely numbered limited edition metal badge.“Being gamers at heart, we know how passionate gamers can be about their favorite titles. And even more so with the rise of in-game items customization featuring intensively sought-after rare skins. That’s why we decided to work with Brock Hofer to help CS:GO fans turn their favorite virtual skin into their own very rare build. With H440 Hyper Beast one can say that the beast is truly unleashed” says Johnny Hou, NZXT’s founder and CEO. H440 Hyper Beast main fea...

Update: I found a tweet to a Youtube link that gives some more info on the Duel headset. Check it out below! What started as one mouse review turned into a bunch shortly after. I’ve had the privilege to try out numerous designs, features and styles during my escapades as a hardware reviewer. While some designs are excellent and deserve special levels of praise, the FNATIC Flick is the simple gaming mouse I keep coming back to. Most of this is due to the fact that I’m too set in my ways to really work out a new button configuration, but the rest is due to it being the best feeling mouse I’ve used to date. In light of that, it’s no surprise to tell you that I’m really excited for the new mouse and headset FNATIC is releasing. The Clutch G1 doesn’t look like it’s going to change much from it’s predecessor, the Flick. Both use a modest Pixart 3310 sensor that doesn’t have the crazy DPI settings the 3360 does, but it was always fast enough for me. It looks like it’s going to be bit larger and have an extra DPI button so that it will cater to FPS players a bit more. That said, each person has a unique taste when it comes to how a mouse feels so larger might be better in general as well. FNATIC is also unleashing the Duel TMA-2 headphones on us. Details are minimal at the time being, but the modular design sounds interesting and I’m hoping for the same level of quality I found with the Flick. Needless to say, the...

Welcome back to our second roundup of hardware news that happened this month. The CPU and GPU side of things may have slowed down a tad, but there’s a lot that happened with cooling and cases. Let’s dive in and get excited about what’s coming down the road! CPUs Let’s start out with an update on Kaby Lake. Geekbench came out with some impressive results and the story made it look like INTEL has merely been holding back for a while. Recently however, an i5-7500K sample was benchmarked and only showed about a 10% improvement over Skylake. This is actually pretty disappointing, especially considering that the 4970K is still a top tier single thread performer. On the plus side, it looks like all 100 series motherboards will be able to support Kaby Lake with a BIOS update, but I doubt many will see the need to upgrade from Skylake in such a short time table. At the time being, ASUS is the only brand this is confirmed for, but that’s a good indication that other manufactures will follow suit. We’re still a ways out from release so we can almost expect performance to fluctuate a bit more until closer to release. http://wccftech.com/intel-core-i5-7600k-kaby-lake-cpu-benchmarks/ http://wccftech.com/kaby-lake-support-asus-100-series-motherboards-confirmed/ GPUs The big news this month was the release of the GTX 1050 Ti and the 1050. Each GPU offers a great budget option for 1080p gaming while being extremely energy efficient. Rather than reinvent ...

Some products go through numerous revisions in an ever-evolving attempt to gain relevance. Others are so good at the start that revisions are few and far between. The Kraken falls into the latter group, having had a great reputation since the very first releases. In fact, the Kraken lineup has only seen one revision since it’s first release years ago. With that in mind, it’s pretty exciting to see that NZXT is about to release the X42, X52 and X62 coolers with some simple improvements that will keep the Kraken name going strong. The revisions on the series are nothing major, but look like they’ll keep the Kraken performing well in cooling and silence. The pump seems to be a bit stronger with what looks like an improved lighting effect, while the added Aer P fans seem to follow in a similar fashion. There’s some other improvements, but what I like about this is the concept of bringing better cooling performance without sacrificing the noise the unit will have. The reviews will confirm this, but I’m not seeing much to indicate that this won’t be the case here. On top of that, NZXT is including a phenomenal 6-year warranty. That’s pretty ambitious for a CLC. Availability on the units will be about a month out, but I’m already excited to see how the new Kraken units will do. Once again, NZXT’s lineup already has a good reputation that didn’t require a whole lot to be changed, but I doubt anybody will complain about an...

How does a freelance writer keep up with everything happening in the industry when he has a full time job, a family, reviews to keep up with and a puppy in training? It’s worth pointing out that a lot has happened in the month of September this year. AMD has been making announcements about Zen, INTEL has had some details about Kaby Lake and NVIDIA is talking about the GTX 1050. Rather than try to keep up with every piece of news as it releases, we’re going to try something new by having a once a month update to catch you up on the things that are happening in the industry. Welcome to the PureOC Monthly News! On the last Friday of each month, we’ll pull together all the news that feels relevant and give a one stop location to get your info from. So without further ado, let’s get into what’s happened this month. CPUs, Motherboards and Chipsets AMD Zen, Grey Hawk, X370 Chipset and A12-9800 We’ll start with AMD this time around since much of the anticipation of what will happen in the CPU sector relies on them. We got some more detailed shots of the new Zen chip and the 1331 pin design is confirmed. As far as new info is concerned though, we didn’t get much this month for that. The A12-9800 on the other hand had some very interesting leaks. Some performance scores showed up and even though the new AM4 chip is still using Steamroller cores, it has some reasonable improvements. What was really interesting was an overclocking result. So...

Alright! Go ahead and grab a tiny pinch of salt just in case, but something VERY exciting has surfaced and it’s about as legit as we can get until Zen’s actual release arrives. We’ve heard AMD talk about the 40% IPC gain for some time, but that doesn’t translate into a real world performance scenario. However, WCCFtech just picked up a benchmark that finally gives us a lot of hope for the CPU market next year. Apparently an Ashes of the Singularity Benchmark leaked that had the new Zen chip as the processor. The chip was an engineering sample so it was only running a 2.8 GHz base and 3.2 GHz boost clock. While the benchmark results were standalone, WCCFtech took the opportunity to bench other processors using a similar setup (The RX 480 being the other key piece). While this won’t be as accurate as a full review, the new Zen chip easily performed above an i5-4670K while still falling behind the i7-4790. Here’s the big deal though. Against the previous FX-8350, the Zen chip has almost a 40% performance increase in this benchmark! Granted, this is early and across two different systems, but this is a good sign that Zen is going to reach expectations. Another thing that makes this a pretty big deal is the fact that the clocks seem really low for the average CPU nowadays. It’s very likely that these clocks are going to be higher once the chip actually hits the market. Even a 20% boost on the current clocks will likely push the chip ahe...

After a long couple of weeks of anticipation, we finally have our winners selected from the CABLEMOD giveaway! Pure Overclock wants to send a huge thank you to everyone who participated. The contest was fun and we want to thank CABLEMOD for providing the strips for the winners. Keep checking PureOC for upcoming news and reviews. check out the video below for the winners and we hope to have another giveaway down the road! https://cablemod.com/

I have to tell you the comfort, dexterity, precision, and balance it provided while working or gaming put it right up there with others at the very top of my list I simply love this mouse and it is now my go to for everything especially gaming.

GIGABYTE Launches New X99 and 100 Series Designare Motherboards Engineered with the latest technology to enable the designer in you City of Industry, California, June 3rd 2016 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards is proud to announce today its new X99-Designare EX and Z170X-Designare motherboards based on the Intel® X99 and Z170 chipsets with support for Intel’s 5th and, current, 6th Gen. Core™ processor, respectively. Intended to help the designers bring their projects to reality, the Designare motherboards offer a blend of the latest technologies that will ensure creativity is never placed on hold. Today’s content creators require finely tuned computers that can produce results fast and efficiently, and with the release of the Designare Motherboards, GIGABYTE provides motherboards that meet the needs of these content creators with the right mix of features. With support for DDR4, better compatibility with Intel’s 750 series NVMe SSDs, as well as support for USB 3.1 over USB Type-C™, the new Designare motherboards are an ideal choice for high performance PCs that will meet the needs of today’s digital artists and engineers. “We understand that the 3D modelers, engineers, and content creators of this world require the most advanced technology they can get their hands on to help create a better world,” commented Henry Kao, Vice President of GIGABYTE Motherboard Business Unit. “With the X99-Designa...

Computex is in full swing and there’s more hardware announcements than a news site can shake a stick at. Still, we cover what we can and what particularly caught my eye was the new Lightsaber board from ECS. While they aren’t known for gaming motherboards, this looks like a solid release from the company. The no frills layout will likely have less features than competing boards but it also has a good chance of being very cost effective. What’s important is what appears to be a solid VRM design with a good heatsink covering them. Add some RGB illumination and this is certainly a board an overclocker can be interested in, if the price is right. Check out the press release below for more info and a look at the new Liva mini PCs. ECS launches brand new LEET GAMING motherboard & LIVA mini PC @Computex 2016 Illumination LED and Killer Gaming network – Z170-LIGHTSABER, LIVA Pro with MINI STX solution [Taipei – Taiwan] Elitegroup Computer System (ECS) proudly introduces its brand new LEET GAMING motherboard Z170-LIGHTSABER and LIVA Pro mini-PC in 2016 Computex. Z170-LIGHTSABER adopts the Killer E2400 Gaming high-performance Gigabit Ethernet Controller that prioritizes bandwidth automatically to decrease gaming latency. It implements an independent power solution and Nichicon audio capacitors to provide better audio quality. In addition, it features Illumination LED with 7 colors to go well with your gaming components and chassis! ECS launches new LIVA mi...

GPU Overclocking Comes to CAM NZXT’s CAM tunes-up with GPU Overclocking, an all new mobile experience, and the CAM Powered initiative Los Angeles, CA – NZXT’s CAM PC monitoring software announces the latest in its advanced PC monitoring software, with version 3.1 on desktop and an all-new mobile app experience for the iOS and AndroidTM. In addition, NZXT announces the launch of CAM Powered, a new initiative that brings CAM integration to third-party partners, beginning with CRYORIG at COMPUTEX 2016. With CAM 3.1, GPU overclocking control is now available, allowing users the capability to optimize their gaming experiences with the simplicity CAM is known for. Through the new Tuning tab, users can calibrate GPU power limits, adjust the clock speeds for both the core and memory on the GPU, as well as customize the GPU fan speeds with fan profiles. “Allowing users the ability to get the most of their PC gaming experience with overclocking is just another step CAM is taking to make optimizing the PC experience as painless as possible,” says Johnny Hou, NZXT’s founder and CEO. “As we continue to deliver new features with CAM 3.1 and the new mobile experience, our CAM Powered initiative, beginning with CRYORIG, will add even more functionality and choice to PC users, which is something we are quite passionate about.” New features throughout the CAM 3.1 update include: GPU Overclocking through new Tuning Tab A redesigned positional overlay along with enhanced m...

Liquid cooling is becoming a monster in the enthusiast realm. The good news is that we’ve seen some incredible innovations in the industry. The bad news is we’ve seen a bunch of copy cats and units that exist for the sake of existing. Thankfully, DEEPCOOL takes the closed-loop unit and makes it look like a gamer’s dream come true. The first Captain series had the perfect pump/block design, but opted for the corrugated tubing which took away from some of the visual flair it had. Now, DEEPCOOL has upgraded the Captain series with the EX suffix bringing some notable changes. The most welcome change is the braided sleeving on the tubes getting rid of that clunky corrugated look. Considering we have a nuclear reactor (some prefer the term “steam punk”) sitting on the CPU, the braided sleeving compliments the unit far better than before. On top of that, DEEPCOOL upgraded the fans to their Gamer Storm Series with the double blade. While the double blade may not add a significant performance benefit, it does add a significant aesthetic benefit. This continues to compliment the design of the rest of the unit and makes the Captain EX series stand out in comparison to any other CLC unit. On the flip side, the aluminum radiator and average looking pump strength are things that keep CLCs from performing on the level of custom loops. While the Captain EX series looks great, it’s bound to perform on a close level to other similar units. Overall, I real...

Sometimes, having an awesome looking computer isn’t enough. For some it may be a car, an outfit, or even some flashy wearables, but nothing is going to top what NZXT has in store for us. I think it’s safe to say that the only way to truly stand out in the club is with their new shoes, the Shue+. While you can certainly use these to make a best first impression, NZXT didn’t forget to keep their usual level of quality and functionality as well. Nothing will allow you to brand yourself with your very own style the way the Shue+ can. With a full RGB color spectrum on the sole, you can easily customize your shoe to give exactly the unique look you desire. NZXT also linked the Shue+ with Cam 3.0 so you can control your LEDs from your own PC. I haven’t heard word on whether they’ve linked them with their mobile app yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before you can control your lighting on the move. NZXT didn’t neglect practicality though. They embedded VR screens in the Shue+ as well, so you can VR no matter where you go. It’s just like walking a mile in your video game characters shoes! The Shue+ is retailing for $179.99 on the NZXT site. This is an absolute steal when you consider that most regular sneakers cost four to five times as much. Trust me, I checked amazon for several hours just to be sure. You not only get an extremely great shoe with excellent performance in running, hiking, playing sports and even scub...

Nixeus Technology unveils its Nixeus Vue 24″ 1920×1080 144Hz FreeSync™ Gaming Monitor The NX-VUE24 is engineered with AMD FreeSync™ to deliver a better PC Gaming Experience! Los Angeles – June 2, 2015 – Nixeus Technology, a leading manufacturer of consumer electronics, has announced the world’s first 24″ Full HD 144Hz AMD FreeSync™ Certified Gaming Monitor! The NX-VUE24 supports multiple video inputs to allow for both work and as a general use monitor. With the DisplayPort input, the Nixeus Vue 24″ evolves into the ultimate gaming monitor using VESA’s Adaptive-Sync to work with AMD FreeSync™ compatible Radeon Graphics Cards to help reduce or eliminate screen tearing, latency and stuttering to deliver the best possible PC gaming experience. Combined with a gaming grade display panel’s ultra high 144Hz refresh rate and low 1ms response time, the Nixeus Vue 24″ FreeSync™ Monitor is designed to help PC Gamers dominate their opponents and elevate their gaming experience to the next level. Key features include: AMD FreeSync™ Certified Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080p Refresh Rate: 144Hz with 30Hz – 144Hz Adaptive-Sync Range Response Time: 1ms Inputs: DisplayPort 1.2a, HDMI, Dual-Link DVI, and VGA “We are proud to be partnered with AMD on Project FreeSync™ to develop the ultimate gaming monitor solution that solves screen tearing and stuttering issues that have been plaguing PC Gamers for de...